Activate TU won the executive ticket for Temple Student Government on Friday by a just a few dozen votes. The close competition between Activate TU and Connecting TU, the other ticket that ran, included a suspension and delay of election announcements from the Elections Committee.
Activate TU won by 56 votes — with a total of 2,618 votes while Connecting TU garnered 2,562 votes.
“I’m speechless,” said Student Body President-elect Tyrell Mann-Barnes. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m so happy I could cry.”
Mann-Barnes said his team will draft an ethics board application Friday night so members of the board can begin their duties alongside the rest of Activate TU’s executive team and the new Parliament members.
TSG announced Parliament winners a little less than an hour after the new executive ticket.
“It wasn’t just about getting enough votes to win,” said Paige Hill, vice president-elect of student affairs. “We wanted to make sure that people really knew they could vote, really came out to vote and let their voices be heard.”
Ari Abramson, who ran as president for the Connecting TU ticket, said that he wasn’t sure if his campaign would try to continue to be involved with TSG.
“We’ll just have to see how things play out,” he said.
Other members of Connecting TU were not available to comment.
Activate TU was suspended for an hour before voting closed on Wednesday. The Elections Committee delayed announcing the results of the election while they investigated Activate TU’s finances — which were found to be within the spending limit.
Amanda Lien can be reached at amanda.lien@temple.edu or on Twitter @amandajlien.
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